


worth it.

by imagymnasia



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Partial Liberation, Post-Canon, also jodi and rukey picking on hedwyn will never ever get old ever, best buff mom, but also a lot of fluff, there is a lot of angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 19:16:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12065325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagymnasia/pseuds/imagymnasia
Summary: The Rites are ended, and the remaining Nightwings wait for news from above. When it arrives, no one expects it-- or the messenger herself.





	worth it.

It had been half a moon-cycle since the Rites had come to an end.

Things were quieter, now, without half of the triumvirate around to bother her. Less than half, because something had gone wrong. Jodi wasn’t sure what, but only a few of them had made it back. Perhaps too few, she mused. Only time would truly tell. The Plan was a runaway wagon without a driver; it was no longer in their control. No longer their problem.

Gilman had gone home straight away; then, the bird. _That_ decision had been made more of desperation than anything. The Reader would never say, of course, but Jodariel sensed that she had acted out of guilt, for letting Tamitha best them in the liberation rite the cycle before. Perhaps Pamitha’s influence would be enough to stop her sister yet again. Strangely, Jodariel found herself missing the noise. Mae and Ti’zo certainly made enough on their own, but it felt incomplete without the others. The triumvirate Jodi had come to call family was now missing pieces. The few that were left were just trying to make the best of things.

The worst was the Reader. She hadn’t been the same since the stars had gone dark. Mostly she kept to herself now, or spent time conversing with that spiteful wraith within the crystal. The others had done their best to cheer her: Ti’zo sang for her and brought her trinkets; Mae, ever faithful, swore that all was as the Scribes had ordained, and things would work themselves out; doggedly cheerful Hedwyn told her stories, distracted her with reading lessons, insisted that the best thing that could happen was that they stay together, just like this. Jodariel had faith the Reader would come back to herself in time and gave her the space she needed to grieve. The demon was making her own peace with all of this, herself. In time, things would fall back into place. For now, living day to day was all they could do. Living, and waiting for news from the Commonwealth.

The day it came was one she would never forget.

They had parked the Blackwagon by the sea, letting Mae and Ti’zo splash about on the shore while the Reader drew things in the sand and Hedwyn hunted for something marginally more appetizing to eat than gutter crabs. For all that he hated being _on_ the water, being near the Sea of Solis seemed to do Hedwyn some good. It did them all good. Even _she_ felt a bit lighter in this place. Perhaps it was the freshness of the air, or the sound of Mae’s laughter, but for the first time in a long time things seemed almost normal again. As normal as their motley Downside group could get.

She saw the shadow first; Hedwyn sounded the alarm a moment later, and for a brief moment she was proud of him. He hadn’t forgotten after all; hadn’t gone too soft. Yet even before she thought it, Jodi was already moving, cursing the sand under hoof as it shifted beneath her. Panic and adrenaline coursed through her veins, her body remembering old war drills and the rush of combat long left behind her.

 _Harp_.

The creature was headed straight for him. She wasn’t going to make it.

“Hedwyn, _move_ —”

With a flash of cerulean wings the Harp crashed into him, covering them both in a swirling storm of sand. Jodi could hear it laughing, heard Hedwyn cry out in pain. Fury replaced panic, and Jodi threw herself into the dust cloud, growling.

Burying her claws in feather and flesh, she yanked the Harp up and away. The winged girl yelped, pain and surprise and not nearly enough fear, but Jodi ignored it. That was only a taste of what she would do to this little bird if she had hurt her son. “Demon!” she cried, the irony not lost on her even in her rage. “I shall tear your wings off at the shoulders, you—"

“ _Jodi!_ ”

Hedwyn. He was alive, thank the useless Scribes.

“Jodi, wait!”

She snarled. “Why _should_ I?”

By now the dust had settled, and the rest of the Nightwings had arrived to help. Ti’zo trilled in alarm from Mae’s shoulder, and the Reader, book in hand, looked ready to fight the Harp herself. Rukey, bristling from head to tail, growled from his place at the Reader’s feet. Hedwyn was picking himself up; he didn’t seem to be injured. He did, however, look like he’d seen a ghost.

“Jodi, please,” he said, his voice small and high and tight. “Don’t hurt her. _Please_.”

In her grip, the Harp squirmed. She was smaller than Pamitha, slender and beautiful and very, very blue.  The hair resting on her shoulders was long, elegant, curling at the ends like a cresting wave. Defiant green eyes stared back at her, not bothering to mask her fear yet meeting Jodi’s glare all the same. A curious mark of the same color stood out on her pale skin; something Jodariel had seen on other Harps, but did not quite understand.

“Jodi?” the Harp murmured, her mouth forming around the name as if she were tasting it. “Jodi. Oh!” And the Harp smiled, then, which unnerved Jodi more than anything else. “ _You’re_ Jodariel! Of course!”

“What in the Scribes names is that supposed to mean?” Jodi snapped. She’d never met this Harp before, she was sure of it. Firstly, she wouldn’t be alive, and secondly, she was much too young to have been on the Bloodborder before Jodi’s exile.

“Jodi,” and Hedwyn took her arm in his hands. Gently, just resting, afraid to push her too far. “Let her go. It’s alright.” He stared at her, eyes pleading. She met his gaze with skepticism.

“Are you hurt?”

“What? No, I’m fine—"

“Good.”

“Jodi, please—”

“She attacked you, Hedwyn,” she snapped. “What am I—”

“She didn’t _attack_ me!” Hedwyn rarely raised his voice; Jodi could think of maybe three times that he had done so since she’d known him, and so it almost always caught her off-guard. This time was no different. “Please,” he said, more like himself. “Just trust me.”

Damn him. Damn those hopeful eyes and his big heart and—

“ _Fine._ ” Jodi released the girl, shoving her away and putting herself between the Harp and her son. “Speak, little bird. What is it you want, here?”

Once again, it was Hedwyn who spoke first.

“She’s here for me.”

Jodi glared over her shoulder at him, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. “That much was obvious to me.”

“No, I mean—” Hedwyn sighed, his gaze drifting past Jodi to the winged girl. Jodi wondered at the expression. Was that familiarity? _Longing?_ “Jodi, may I introduce Fikani Shang.”

 _Fikani._ Of course. The little Harp who had stolen his heart nearly six years ago, now. His love-at-first-sight.

Something inside her urged her to wrap herself around him, to put herself between his heart and the Harp who would inevitably break it. But that was Jodariel the mother speaking, and not Jodariel the friend, and so she ignored it. For now.

“Oh, you’re Fikani?” Mae’s bright voice shattered the awkward silence, her grin lighting up the whole shore. “You are, of course you are! Why, you’re so beautiful, no wonder Hedwyn loves you so much—”

Behind her, Hedwyn made a choking sound. Jodi stifled a chuckle. Rukey didn’t bother.

“Mae,” Jodi said, soft yet firm, and the girl stopped talking. She did not, however, stop smiling. On her shoulder, Ti’zo giggled.

Fikani, smiling more to herself than anyone, shifted her wings, settling them on her back with a twist and a twitch. “I’m sorry to have frightened you all—” Jodi snorted, but said nothing. “I was just so happy to have found you—”

“How _did_ you find us?” Hedwyn took a wary step around Jodi; when she didn’t stop him, he closed the gap between them. “Why are you h—” His face darkened, voice almost a growl. “Did _they_ —”

“No,” she said quickly, her laughter high and light. “No no no. The Commonwealth isn’t in much of a position to do anything, at the moment.”

“Then… the Plan?” Rukey asked, his ears standing hopefully erect. “Did it work?”

“If this is the same plan Pamitha told me about, then yes, I believe it worked,” Fikani answered. “The Commonwealth is no more. It’s the Sahrian Union, now.”

Behind them, the Reader let out of a heavy breath. “Oh,” she said, relief almost tangible in her voice. “Thank the Scribes.”

“Thank yourselves,” said the Harp. “That’s what they’re calling you all now, did you know? The Scribes reborn.” Her eyes danced as she looked on Hedwyn again. “For someone who didn’t want to fight, you sure did a number on the upstairs.”

“It’s not quite the same thing,” Hedwyn murmured. Avoided her eyes. Uncomfortable.

Jodi scoffed. It was good that the Plan had succeeded; she would have to send word to Sandalwood, to complain at him for not letting them know how things were going on above. Perhaps he was too busy with the revolution—or with Oralech, she mused. Still. No excuse for keeping them in the dark.

None of this, of course, explained what she was doing here. “If there are to be no more exiles,” she asked, “then why are you here?”

Fikani blinked at her. “Why, for Hedwyn of course.”

And that should have made him happy, but Jodi saw his smile slip, just a little. Saw the telltale signs—the tightness at the corner of his eyes, the way his hands gripped his cloak, the way his complexion seemed to fade—that said he wanted to be sick.

Jodi looked to the others, meeting each set of eyes in turn. Loathe as she was to leave him, perhaps they should give the two some privacy--

“Fikani,” said Hedwyn, his words slow, deliberate, “I don’t know what you heard about me, but—”

“Oh, I know everything,” she interrupted, tone a little too casual. “Pamitha told me what happened. How you went looking for me. How it got you into trouble.” Then she dropped her eyes, ashamed. “It’s my fault you’re here.”

“ _NO_ —” Hedwyn choked on the word, the venom in his own voice stunning him to abrupt silence. He cleared his throat and tried again. “No, Fikani. I was exiled because I made a choice. One that got a lot of people killed.” He sighed. “Whatever you heard, whatever you think… I deserve to be here. I messed up, and I have to live with that for the rest of my life.”

Fikani stared back at him. At first, it was with disbelief; but disbelief quickly turned to anger. She flapped her wings once, an irritable twitch, and scoffed.

“You’re here because your own country branded you a traitor,” she snapped.

“I _was_ a traitor!” he exclaimed. It hurt him to say it, Jodi _knew_ how much it hurt him, but she didn’t dare stop this. She needed to let him work this out for himself. “I deserted my post. People I knew, people I counted as friends—they died, because I wasn’t there to do my job!”

“It wasn’t a job you wanted.”

“But people were counting on me. With their _lives_ , Fikani. And I betrayed them.” Hedwyn sighed, his shoulders slumping under the weight of his guilt. “Why,” he whispered; not a question, almost a prayer. “Why would you follow me here?”

“Because I’d finally found you again!” It was Fikani’s turn to be angry—to be hurt. “I spent every day for five years looking for you, waiting for you—wondering if you’d moved away, or— _moved on_. And then I met this curious Harp named Pamitha Theyn, who told me all about the Downside, and how she’d come to escape it—something she’d been forbidden to tell anyone, but she told me. She told me about this boy she’d met in exile, a boy with red hair and a heart too big for his own good, and I _knew_ —I knew I had to see you again.”

“But _why?”_ Jodi could hear his heart breaking, see it laid bare across his face. “I’m here because I deserve it, Fikani. I’m not a man worth exiling yourself for.”

“Hedwyn—”

“You could have been _happy_.”

“ _Happy?_ ” she echoed. “Happy! Do you remember what I came from? Have you been away so long that you’ve forgotten what it was like? For yourself? For me?” Fikani scoffed. “Happy. The only good thing ever that came from this war was meeting you.”

Hedwyn paused, determined to come up with a proper counter. “…You don’t know what it’s like down here.”

“It can’t be worse than a world without you in it.” He started to protest, but Fikani lifted her wing, the tips of her feathers brushing his lips. “Hush, Hedwyn. There is nothing you could say that would make me change my mind.”

That should have been the end of it, but Jodi could tell he wasn’t ready to give up, yet. She sighed. The boy was going to sabotage himself if he didn’t shut up, and soon.

“Hedwyn,” she said, and the sound of her voice seemed to startle him; had he forgotten she was there? “Enough. This path only leads to ruin.”

For a brief moment, a flash of betrayal crossed his face. “Jodi—But—but this is her life we’re talking about!”

“Hey, chum,” Rukey said gently, settling himself at Jodi’s side, with as serious a face as the cur could muster, “did you forget the part where she’s already here?”

With a gentle wing, Fikani turned Hedwyn to face her. “What’s done is done, Hedwyn. Even the Scribes couldn’t send me back now.”

He winced. “But—”

“ _Stop it_.” Fikani scraped her talons in the sand, buried them deep in her anger. “You’re being so—so— _selfish._ You said you’re here because you made a choice; well, so am I. This is what I wanted, Hedwyn. This is what I chose. And do you know what? _It was worth it_.”

Hedwyn froze. For a moment, Jodi thought he might actually cry. His shoulders shook, as if suppressing a sob--but then he threw his head back and _laughed_ , loud enough to startle even her, and didn't stop.

“ _Damn it_ ,” he breathed, barely able to speak, “using my own lines against me.” He doubled over, laughing like he might come apart; soon, Fikani joined him, anger forgotten, and the echoes of their happiness broke like the waves of Solis across the beach.

Jodi hadn’t heard him laugh like that in a very long time.

“Fine,” said Hedwyn, when he could breathe again. “Fine. You win.”

“Damn right I do.” But her smile was soft; Fikani leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder as she wrapped him in unclipped, perfect wings. Hedwyn made a sort of surprised squeaking sound, his face a sunburnt red.

“I’ve missed you,” she said.

“As did I,” he replied, choking down his embarrassment enough to stroke her hair. “Every day.”

“So, you gonna kiss her or what?”

The bark of laughter escaped before Jodi could stop it. Even so, she nudged Rukey with her foot as Hedwyn turned to glower at him through his blush.

“Not in front of the children,” she said, which only served to mortify Hedwyn even more.

“ _Jodi!_ "

Rukey’s tailed thumped in the sand with barely-contained glee. “Hey, I think Mae’s old enough to learn about this sort of thing.”

“Oh, but, I think it would be very sweet if Mister Hedwyn kissed Miss Fikani, don’t you think so, Miss Jodariel?”

Jodi chose not to answer that, turning to Rukey instead. “I wasn’t talking about Mae.”

“Then—Hey! Jodi! I-I’m older than she is!” Rukey spluttered. “In cur years, anyhow!”

“Irrelevant.”

“ _How is that irrelevant?!”_

Hedwyn, by now, had buried his face in his hands. “Unbelievable,” he groaned.

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Fikani. “I think I like them.”

“Well, you’re stuck with them now,” Hedwyn chuckled, flashing her a smile between his fingers. “So you’d better.” With a sigh, he came out of hiding. Offered her an arm. “Come on, I’d better introduce you. Properly, this time.”

Fikani laughed, wrapping her wing around him. Then, because the others were distracted and for the first moment since she’d arrived she felt like that had a moment alone, she pecked him on the cheek.

“I think I’d like that, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Damn. I'd been meaning to write this ever since I heard about Fikani _canonically exiling herself to find him_. It made me feel a lot better about their single-day whirlwind romance. I like to believe that this is the beginning of something new for them, something real. Now they have the time to really know themselves, and to fall in love all over again.
> 
> Special thanks to [simplycarryon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/simplycarryon), my beta-reader and half the reason I get anything done. Thanks for being my sounding board, babe.


End file.
